Comments on WasWatching.com Water Cooler Talk 3/31/09

Tomko and Aceves optioned, Albaladejo is on the team. I feel be for Tomko after his good spring, but I am glad about Albaldejo, because I feel he was pitching really well last season until he got hurt (and because it’s funny that we actually got something for Tyler Clippard.)

It’s only a matter of time before Tomko remembers who he is, and starts stinking up the joint
I guess he’s this year’s Scott Erickson. MiL filler, I don’t see anyone on the roster that Tomko could/would displace

Good call Raf. I’m bearish on Tomko as well. Quite frankly, on a megapayroll team like the Yankees their options should be better than someone like Tomko!

MJ wrote:
amazing that shefield is being paid 14 mil to sit at home
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Yet Steve still insists that the Tigers have a better GM than the Yanks…
MJ, when Cashman takes a team that has NOTHING, like David Dombrowski did with the Marlins AND the Tigers, and brings them to the post-season, call me up.
Or, when Cashman builds a farm system/young team like David Dombrowski did with the Expos, call me up.
Until then, you got nothing.

Agreed. Steve, let me up the ante a bit. Can you imagine if Dombrowski had the extra 70 mill plus a year to play around with that Cash Man has? He could pay over the draft and cherry pick almost any free agent and be able to assume any flops and STILL be competitive. Cash Man gets a special mention as a middling GM because of the money he has to play around with. And his drafting of mostly pitching has left the Yankees with the lack of position players that are part of the “next generation “. Who is the Ellsbury, Lowrie or Wolf Boy Pedroia on the Yankees? That underachiever Cano? In essence, give 70 mill less to Cash Man each year and have the Yanks being in the playoffs each year THEN tell me what a superior GM is. Otherwise, Charlie McCarthy could spend 200 mill a year and field a decent team!

MJ, when Cashman takes a team that has NOTHING, like David Dombrowski did with the Marlins AND the Tigers, and brings them to the post-season, call me up.
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And how are those Tigers and Marlins doing? How has his track record been overall?

Dave Dombrowski will never be mistaken for one of the new, Ivy league type GMs. He believes in tools, scouting, and gut feelings. But he’s really good at it. He has a terrific eye for talent, and he knows how to put together a roster. However, his old school leanings have led him down some paths of poor decisions – he’s too quick to give long term contracts to aging players and pitchers, and those decisions have put the Tigers in a budgetary bind. Given the necessary resources, he can build a championship team, but some mistakes on his part may be part of the reason that he might not have the necessary resources going forward.

Major League Roster: B-

This is still an impressive core of position player talent that Dombrowski has assembled. Curtis Granderson is a terrific player, Placido Polanco is one of the more underrated players in the game, Ordonez/Cabrera/Guillen is still a fierce middle of the order, and Inge/Laird/Everett should provide enough defensive value to make up for their weak bats. But oh, the pitching. Jeremy Bonderman’s elbow still hurts. Dontrelle Willis still can’t throw strikes. Nate Robertson is struggling to beat out a 20-year-old for the #5 spot in the rotation after posting an ugly ERA in 2008. Justin Verlander is very good, but it gets pretty ugly pretty fast once his turn in the rotation is done. The combination of a questionable pitching staff and an aging group of position players puts the Tigers in a tough spot – their window to win is still open for 2009, but maybe not for 2010, and they might not have enough arms to get to the playoffs this year. If they have to rebuild, Granderson, Verlander, and Porcello are a good nucleus, but there’s not enough young talent around them to do it quickly.
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Front Office: B+

Brian Cashman doesn’t get enough credit for the things he’s done right in New York. Yes, the payroll gives their baseball operations department room to make mistakes that no other franchise could live with, but he’s continually targeted the highest quality of players. He’s also redirected significant cash back into the farm system to develop home grown talent, and he’s shown that he’s an adept trader when he needs to add a piece to the puzzle. The money obviously helps, but Cashman is a good GM, and the Yankees are run well.

Major League Talent: A

With expenditures on major league talent approaching $250 million (including luxury tax payments), it shouldn’t be a surprise that they have a lot of good players. I don’t even have to name them all – we all know who the players on their roster are. The offense is terrific, the rotation is excellent and deep, and the bullpen still has Mariano Rivera. The team lacks depth on the infield and has too many outfielders, but that should be a relatively easy problem to fix. The core of the team isn’t young, but the team always has enough salary obligations opening up to be a premier spending in free agency, so that’s less of an issue than it would be for other organizations.

You want to argue what Dombrowski did in Montreal and Florida? I tip my cap to him for some of those moves he made but that’s not really the point.

The point is that you refuse to give Cashman any credit for anything he does right (money talks) and blame him for everything else. I see far more nuance. Cashman has certainly made mistakes (Carl Pavano being the most glaring) but he’s done good things as well.

Unfortunately you have spent the past several years framing this particular discussion as your crusade to pull back the drapes and expose Cashman to all Yankee fans who “genuflect” in his presence. You seem to believe that defending Cashman equates to calling him infallible and that Dombrowski, for example, is a better GM because of what he’s accomplished in previous seasons. I find this contrast particularly telling because you are not only unwilling to give Cashman credit for his successess or right moves, you exonerate Dombrowski for his own errors.

I reiterate — without speaking for anyone but myself — that defending Cashman doesn’t mean I think he’s infallible. But I also think that flatly denying his accomplishments (as you have been doing with regularity on your blog) is disingenuous if you are not willing to also acknowledge that EVERY GM makes mistakes. The guy you often hold up as a shining example, the aforementioned Dave Dombrowski, has made some stinkers in the two seasons since his team made it to the World Series in 2006.

There’s certainly something to be said for getting a dose of reality and telling it like it is and I think that’s always been WW.com’s mission statement. But there’s reality and there’s arguing a point while omitting facts and selling it as reality.

In most cases you do a good job, albeit you often take the most pessimistic view possible on issues. As much as you want to paint me as a “Cashman-genuflector” or a member of his “Kool-Aid Brigade”, you’ve never owned up to this one point: you change the rules in your arguments when you talk about Cashman and the other 31 GM’s in baseball.

When it comes to this topic, I care only inasmuch as I think Cashman is a good (but not great) GM and will defend him to anyone that argues that he only makes good moves because of money and makes wrong moves otherwise. You can feel free to respond and get the last word in or not. In either case, I’ve said my piece on this topic and I won’t get into a tit-for-tat. I know I’m not changing your mind on this topic so there’s simply no sense in any reply I might be inclined to give thereafter.

as i always say, i’m not a cashman lover or hater. my problem is when people play both sides. can you imagine what we’d be hearing in this space if cashman had made this mistake, giving up three young pitchers for sheff, extending him, and then paying him to sit at home? and then on the other side, getting three young pitchers who haven’t yet done anything at the major league level (despite that youth), it’s still a bad move by cashman. so no matter what cashman does, unless it’s a homerun, it can always get spun negative no matter which side he of a deal he is on.

It’s amazing how Cashman just put together one of the best, most exciting and productive off-seasons in recent Yankee history and he still gets slammed here. Tex, CC. Burnett, Swisher and Pettite are all Yankees, the team is younger, more exciting and he shed payroll in doing it.

My God, the bitching and moaning over stuff like this only personifies how spoiled we are as Yankee fans and why everybody hates us. If you can’t find joy in what he has done this offseason than something is really wrong.

If don’t like Cash, and don’t like that he hasn’t developed an Ellsbury or built a team from the ground up, than go root for the fucking Red Sox or Athletics. I prefer all the whiners and babies on that side of the baseball fence anyway.

i’m not a cashman lover or hater. my problem is when people play both sides.
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I don’t mind playing both sides, it makes for an interesting debate. IMO, you have to be able to see where the other side is coming from, in order to take a reasonable position.

raf – i completely agree with you in that you need to be able to see both sides to know where the other side is coming from. but is it okay to play both sides? a damned if he does damned if he doesn’t kind of thing? my point here was that, at WW, cashman has gotten criticism for the return on sheffield. and i don’t think i’m going out on a limb to say that, had cashman been on the flip side of this trade, trading three young pitchers for an aging slugger, extending him, and then paying him to sit at home, he’d also be getting criticism. for dombrowski, it’s a mistake but he’s still a good GM. for cashman, it’s a mistake and he’s a bad GM as a result. no and this is true no matter which side of the a particular move he is on, it can always get spun negative unless it’s a homerun (like what cashman did here). to me, that doesn’t seem fair. just my opinion.

Oh, I was thinking something else, when you mentioned play both sides… I was thinking devils advocate, or something like that. But yeah, I’m not one to dig a “damned if he does damned if he doesn’t” stance.